I'm dropping frames while editing my home videos! Is this normal? What will it affect...how can i stop it?

Answer 1

It does sound like a software issue. You may need better editing software.

TV and movies ahear to a standard. 30 Frames in the US for TV/Video, 24 frames for film. In Europe both are 25 frames.

All dropping frames means is that small elements of action will be missing. You'll jump or maybe look like you're talking in a Godzilla film for a moment.

It is only serious if you intend to meld this to a fixed medium, such as doing a lip sync video to a digital audio track.

Most digital cameras shoot from between 10 to 24 frames for their video and this works well on TV, but it is not as "smooth" as a camcorder which runs at 30 frames in the US.

The worst case is that you'll get the "Keystone Cops" effects of an old time movie when they hand cranked film and the speed varied based on the blood pressure of the cameraman at any given time!

I doubt you'll see a serious problem.

But if you're doing serious work you may need a faster computer, faster hard drive and better software.

Answer 2

Without knowing what software or equipment you're using its hard to help you. Are you talking about moments of black or non-picture or is there something telling you that you are in drop-frame mode?

If you are missing frames of video it can be several things. You could have a bad tape or tape player (dirty heads) or your computer didn't accurately capture the video. Whenver you are editing you should not be running other applications especially the internet. Editing software tends to be very picky about what is running alongside its own program.

If it is the second scenario then you are talking a timecode issue. NTSC (american standard) of timecode is 30 frames per second in non-drop frame mode but in reality video is 29.97 frames per second and therefore we need to drop a frame of video every so often - i forget the exact increment of time.

If this is not a professional video or being aired on TV then you don't need to worry about being NDF or DF. I hope this helps!

Answer 3

Basically, while capturing video to your computer, it is done in real time, so for example, if you are using too many programs that uses the memory and cpu or your computer processor is not too fast to capture high quality videos, your computer is not able to capture all the frames so it starts dropping the frames randomly.

I had the same problem with my old PC with Pinnacle Studio DV software while tranferring video from a professional camcorder.

Answer 4

Look up in the help:
Synchronicity.
or
Sync.

Depends on the software you use but most home-edit-stuff isn't that accurate.

Answer 5

You did not mention your setup. You need to be using firewire and have at least 512 mb of memory. At least a P4 2gh or faster machine.